Had an interesting day on Thursday, as I kissed my wife and kids goodbye in the morning, drove through the farmlands of southern Ontario (helloooo cows!) until my GPS eventually decided to direct me toward a conference center in Kitchener.
The occasion: Research In Motion's BlackBerry 10 Jam World Tour. This travelling series - it's been to New York, Beijing and my hometown of Montreal, among others - came to RIM's back yard to get developers excited about the company's upcoming new operating system, BlackBerry 10, and the devices based on it.
Why does any of this matter? Simple: No apps, no glory. If RIM doesn't get developers on-board and developing great software for its new devices, no one's going to want to buy the devices in the first place. Apple's App Store - 650,000 titles and counting - and Google's (half a million so far) serve notice that mobile platform success isn't just about sexy hardware. It's apps. And numbers count.
I got to chat with senior RIM leaders on what to expect. I mingled with the developers themselves, many of whom were pretty jazzed about what they saw.
I wrote this article for Yahoo! Canada: RIM's BlackBerry Jam Woos Developers
I chatted with CTV Kitchener's Max Wark for his report. Video here.
When I was done, I headed back to the CTV Kitchener studios to chat with BNN's Michael Hainsworth about what I saw and what I thought. The video is here.
Eventually, I pointed my car toward the setting sun in the west and returned home, again through the gorgeous hinterlands, and again waving to the cows wandering semi-aimlessly through the bucolic landscape. It was a very good day. Wish I could have more just like it.
Ok, I'll admit it. I saw the title and thought, "Wow, I really need to pick the blackberries in my back yard and make some more jam."
ReplyDeleteI was waaaaayyy off on the content of this post. LOL